PORTO FELIZ, Brazil — Jamaica’s Under-20 football coach Luciano Gama said Paulina FC coach Elio Sizenando’s assessment of the Young Reggae Boyz performance against his team on Sunday, was offbeat.

Sizenando had said in a post-game comment that he believed the Jamaicans were not compact as a team and that the midfielders shirked their duty and left too much of the defending to the back four.

Gama rebutted the claims, stating that the young Boyz were compact in their defensive organisation, which blunted Paulina FC’s attacking moves. Independent on-spot opinions went against the view of Sizenando, Gama noted.

“But if he (Sizenando) saw the game that way, it’s up to him… (what’s important) is that we thought the team was compact, and at times too compact because we needed to push the midfield line and the striker line further forward,” said the Brazilian, who along with his father Walter, is spearheading the preparation of the Jamaicans ahead of next week’s start to the CONCACAF Under-20 Championship in Guatemala.

In fact, the younger Gama argued that Sunday’s game presented “special situations” for the team, which they could encounter in Guatemala. The Boyz had to play with nine players resulting from questionable refereeing decisions all which provided important lessons going into a tournament.

“We played a lot of the second-half with one man less and then two men less… but it was a good test for us because the situation that we found yesterday (Sunday) is going to be very close to the situation that we will find in Guatamala… so what happened with almost everything that we did was good for us,” said Gama.

Coming out of the controversial match, the Brazilian coach is still concerned with the team’s lack of edge in the final third of the field.

“We started that (working on offence) today (Monday), we worked with a short field and put the goals very close to make the guys kick a lot to try and score, and as you saw in the practice, they made a lot of mistakes… but if we want to win in a competition like the one we are going into, then we need to score,” Gama said.

In the final few days remaining in the three-week training camp, the Gamas and the rest of the technical team intend to work on this problematic area, but will remain committed to addressing all other areas.

“And although the focus will remain on everything, we will work a little bit more with the strikers this week, because we think the defenders are at a good point, so we are going to push a little bit more with the strikers,” he ended.